Thursday 3 October 2024

More On Movies... the return part V




The House That Vanished (1973)
British giallo directed by Jose Larraz. It's all about the stunning Andrea Allan's hair and well she gets her tits out too. Dilapidated mansions, black gloves, shine-y knives, masks, murder, boobs, sleazy photography, dark rooms, gloomy weather, fog, scrap car yards, shonky dudes, foxy ladies, incest, rape, birds, pet monkeys, the 70s, 70s furniture, 70s cars, 70s fashion, 70s England, 70s hair, 70s busters... 


Hell Or High Water (2016)
Good lil' low-key crime drama in the contemporary noir-western style Good. Written by Taylor Sheridan of Yellowstone fame. 



Somewhere In The Night (1946)
Paranoid amnesia noir. If Joe Mankiewicz had removed half an hour of fat from his flick it would be an all time top 10 of Film Noir instead of the underrated flabby coulda-been a masterpiece that it is. The captivating Nancy Guild shines here yet she was only in a handful of movies. 


Call Northside 777 (1948)  
Tedious ripped from the headlines crime noir... just who fucking cares? Shut up James Stewart!


1984 (1984)
The drab omnipresence of the globalist unaparty is here. When are the thought police catching you? That is the question in 2024. Your nightmare was foretold many years earlier... it's all so obvious now that you're a boring hack for pointing this out.


California Split (1974)
Peak Bob Altman. Peak Elliot Gould. Peak George Segal. Peak 70s. Peak America... even the seedy underbelly was better back then. Peak film-making. 


The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
The omnipresent Bond fans are so insufferable it's hard to care one iota about their beloved slice of pop culture but this is a bit of fun if you're in the right mood. Most notable for Barbara Bach's charms and the awesome submarine car. Roger Moore is best Bond, the only Bond really.


Carry On Abroad (1972)
The Carry On movies had been repeated on Aussie telly ad nauseam since I was born then to my surprise Morrissey did an article, in the pages of NME during the 80s, on his love for these movies. I've never had the appetite to investigate wether his point of view was valid or not until until now. 

I could not believe how much I enjoyed Carry On Abroad. Much to my amazement there were some hilarious jokes amongst the lame ones. The ensemble cast and their acting chops is what is really impressive here. Obviously Kenneth Williams is obviously the star, I mean it's obvious but actually they're all stars. 


Carry On Screaming (1966)
This one's all about the foxy Fenella Fielding, she was a goth icon 10 years before Siouxsie. Also stars handsome Harry Corbett as Fielding's love interest. Kenneth Williams as the mad scientist is outstanding. This is a Hammer horror parody with some pretty weird bits, I mean kidnapping young pretty ladies and turning them into mannequins to sell to department stores isn't your usual movie plot line. Probably the best atypical Carry On movie.
 

Carry On Henry (1971)
Sid James as Henry VIII who wont shag his new missus Marie Of Normandy (Joan Sims) because she's got bad breath, let the ribald shenanigans begin. Kenneth Williams plays Thomas Cromwell. It's historic.


Carry On Loving (1970)
A dating agency is run by Sid, Hattie and a room sized computer. Let the romantic misadventures begin. 


Carry On Doctor (1967)
I found this one just tedious... quite unbearable really. I mean Talbot Rothwell wrote 20 scripts in 10 years or something so.... Still the mismatched romance scenes with Kenneth Williams as Dr Tinkle and Hattie Jaques as Matron are brilliant and iconic!


Carry On Camping (1969)
The Carry On movies were way more about sexual repression than anything else although spoiler alert Sid gets his end away at the end of Camping but with his actual girlfriend Joan Sims and not Babs who he'd been ogling for the second half the movie. Also features a scene with a rather delightful disdain for hippies at the end with Kenneth & Hattie spraying a field of hippies with disinfectant - punk! 


The Faculty (1998)
Surprising monster movie from the 90s. I missed this Invasion Of The Body Snatchers meets The Breakfast Club meets The Thing mash-up at the time. Usher is in it. The Faculty though is most notable for possibly the worst haircut on a lead actor in film history on this dude named Josh Hartnett, absolutely shocking, a crime against humanity.


The First Omen (2024)
Spectacularly put together sound and vision experience like a good music video but a pretty daft, incoherent and surprisingly un-horrifying story. Abortion subtext: Nobody cares.


Conan The Barbarian (1982)
Managed to avoid seeing this my whole life until now despite it always popping up in books on cult movies. I guess I always thought this kinda shit was for dorks... there are some funny moments like when Conan chucks a devil woman into the fire and when he punches a camel but is that enough though...

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